I would like some input from others here who own laptops. I have an Asus U81A that I bought 7 years ago. With conditioning, this laptop still runs for 5 hours on a single full charge. Personally I know no other friend who has a laptop this old that will hold a charge. From talking to people what I have gathered is that the "normal" lifetime of a battery is between 2-3 years before capacity goes down to less than an hour. But also the trend is that these people leave the laptop charged every chance there is. Never cycling the battery. The companies boast no memory but I seem to have a 7 year experiment that says otherwise. I know this is one case in everyone that I know. But I really don't know anyone else with a 7 year old laptop with 5 hour run time.
What I have done since day one is to always drain the battery down to between 7-12 percent and charge to full. Never leaving it plugged in at full charge for more than 8 hours. And this seems to have worked better than I have imagined. I have estimated I have charged this battery pack over 2500 times. Brand new the battery life was 7 hours. 7 years later and it will still hold a charge for 5 hours. I have no idea what batteries these are but they are good stuff.
At the time I bought this laptop I wanted quality and simplicity. I didn't care for HD screen and an awesome video chip. I wanted a sound processor, high RAM, good battery life, and plenty of memory. All for 800 dollars. Nowadays 800 will get you a crazy laptop. But I really see no need to get a new laptop while this runs Windows 7 just fine and BEATS the run time of new laptops today. End my nerd rant.
What I have done since day one is to always drain the battery down to between 7-12 percent and charge to full. Never leaving it plugged in at full charge for more than 8 hours. And this seems to have worked better than I have imagined. I have estimated I have charged this battery pack over 2500 times. Brand new the battery life was 7 hours. 7 years later and it will still hold a charge for 5 hours. I have no idea what batteries these are but they are good stuff.
At the time I bought this laptop I wanted quality and simplicity. I didn't care for HD screen and an awesome video chip. I wanted a sound processor, high RAM, good battery life, and plenty of memory. All for 800 dollars. Nowadays 800 will get you a crazy laptop. But I really see no need to get a new laptop while this runs Windows 7 just fine and BEATS the run time of new laptops today. End my nerd rant.